I think CEOs - particularly those that represent very large organisations - should be wary about using Twitter too liberally. There are only so many "Richard Branson" types around that can really engage and influence through tweeting. It is after all a "social" channel of communication - hence, the impact of any message (deliberate or otherwise) delivered through it could have a profound impact on its audience. Remember - Ratner!

A public company CEO's lieutenants have much more freedom than a CEO to tweet, blog -- and do lots of other things. Consider @Benioff's JP Rangaswami Gă┼(@jobsworth) whose title is Salesforce Chief Scientist and who tweets and blogs about many interesting things. Certainly not with a marketing slant. At Cisco, I follow @Padmasree with interest. There are plenty of CIOs and CTOs on my follow list. The only CEOs I can think of that I follow are either 1. startup CEOs or 2. smaller company CEOs at private companies.

What about CEOs of public companies? Can they really be on social networks, spewing whatever they want? Watch them give speeches or listen to their earnings calls -- they are bland, non-committal and their messages are nested in caveats and PR speak. I remember Cisco CEO John Chambers telling me how he has to be careful about what he says, or even the way he looks when he says something, lest someone interpret a blink or an eyebrow raise as something more than a facial tic. I can imagine a day when a vocal F500 CEO makes a stab at a Tweet and the SEC opens an investigation. OK, maybe a bit of hyperbole there, but you get the point.

Great point on the importance of CEOs using social techniques internally with employees. That can be hugely effective -- in fact it's probably essential to get social network tools used widely in-house.

For a $20-some billion revenue company like Oracle to grow at 50% is like it added 5+ Salesforces, David -- not bad, even without tweets! Ellison and Benioff both put on can't-miss keynote speeches at their customer events, Open World and Dreamforce. Those kind of venues are where I think their messages get out. That's where they reach their customers with very compelling storytelling there. But I don't think most CEO's storytelling voice and charisma carries through on Twitter.

I think you've glossed over a major point in comparing Fortune 500 to Inc. 500 -- scale and scope. Inc 500 companies are often several orders of magnitude smaller than Fortune 500 companies. CEOs are much less likely to be directly involved with customers at the F500 level versus Inc500 who probably *are*. Both are CEOs but with very different focus and areas of responsibility.

It's important to stay in touch with what's happening in the world, but, if a CEO really doesn't have something to say to the broad world, there is no reason for them to be tweeting. Social media has led to customers forming higher expectations of access and engagement but that doesn't mean everyone in the company has to turn their focus to meeting those expectations. My question is, how many CEOs have something interesting, relevant and informative to share?

Social Media is an amplifier. Being on twitter doesn't make you more or less of an asshole just like it doesn't make you more or less of an effective CEO. Understanding the dynamics of social constructs and their risk/reward for your organization? Absolutely critical. Actually *being* social personally? Well, if you are someone who can pull that off in a way that's beneficial to your company that's great. If not...

Fact is the more progressive companies have more progressive CEO's, the more progressive you are the more comfortable you are participating. Thus...CEO's of the more progressive growth companies are on Twitter at a higher percentage. Their engagement didn't create their success, their particular style and personality just makes it easier for them to engage.

But it's just correlation, not causation. In other words, it's like saying that crime is highest when it's hot outside (true), and more ice cream is sold when it's hot outside (true), thus ice cream makes people into criminals (not true).

Thanks for a balanced point of view vs. the social media purist rhetoric.

As InformationWeek Government readers were busy firming up their fiscal year 2015 budgets, we asked them to rate more than 30 IT initiatives in terms of importance and current leadership focus. No surprise, among more than 30 options, security is No. 1. After that, things get less predictable.